Nothing Wasted

Today is the 4th Anniversary of my Granny Alice's death.  While it's difficult to believe she has been gone for four years already, so many of  her life lessons still resonate with me and I'm sure they always will.  One lesson in particular that she probably never even meant to teach has an especially strong meaning and presence in my life today.

Granny never threw much away.  I can remember watching her rinse out and save plastic bags and containers.  Sandwich bags, freezer bags, even bread bags were washed, dried, saved and reused.  Same thing with plastic bowls and cups.  Cool Whip bowls, butter bowls, sour cream containers.  All were saved and reused. She didn't see the purpose in throwing something away that could be used again.

Perhaps that outlook was one of the reasons she loved garage sales and yard sales so much.  She would pick me up early on Saturday mornings.  Me, an excited little girl with a couple of dollars to spend on whatever treasures I could find, and her with Thursday's newspaper full of red circles around the yard sales she had chosen and mapped out for us to visit that morning.  Off we'd go in search of treasure.  Browsing and sorting through other people's discarded items and often - no, I take that back - always - coming home with something.  It may not have been useful to the seller anymore...it may have even been broken or missing parts...but Granny could find a purpose for it and give it a new life.  She was good at it.  Very good at it.  Finding treasure among the discarded.  Finding purpose in the trash.

I must have inherited a small part of that gene because as I sit here this morning at my new desk made from an old door I picked up off the side of the road, I can't help but think that Granny would be very proud.  I think she would love my door desk and would love even more the fact that I've made something fabulous out of something meant for the garbage.  I think she'd see a little bit of herself in me and smile.  And while that makes me smile, too...it also makes me miss her that much more.